NPL's commercial services are built on 100 years of leadership in accuracy, innovation and scientific research. Experienced consultants and project managers draw upon a unique combination of industry know-how and world-leading scientific discovery to deliver real-world business solutions and enable innovation and secure competitive advantage.

We strive to actively promote public awareness and appreciation of science and technology, particularly the importance of measurement and the role of NPL. Here you can find out more about the interesting things we do, science outreach activities you can get involved in or take a look at some of our educational resources.

EMRP project selected to organise international symposium in E-MRSThe European Materials Research Society (EMRS) Spring Meeting attracts over 2,000 scientists and engineers every year with a combination of technical and plenary sections and a large industrial exhibition. In 2011 there were more than 3,000 participants from 62 countries. Members of EMRP Thin Films, with support from EMRP TreND, applied for and were accepted to organise a full symposium in the EMRS Spring Meeting 2014.Further information about the symposium

Measuring active catalyst area in fuel cellsA novel in situ diagnostic technique has been developed at NPL that makes possible for the first time monitoring of the active area of platinum catalyst in each individual cell in a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell stack. This provides a powerful new tool for the study of critical degradation mechanisms such as catalyst poisoning, carbon support corrosion and catalyst sintering.A joint paper by NPL and Johnson Matthey on this work has recently been accepted for publication in the Journal of Power Sources.

MEMS technology for energy harvestingAn article in leading publication New Electronics describes recent research from NPL - applying a new MEMS device for the in situ rapid evaluation of the piezoelectric properties of thin films or micro structured components, to MEMS energy harvesting technology.The full article can be read in New Electronics

Materials technology is vital to industrial competitiveness, energy security, sustainability and innovation across all sectors, including healthcare and the environment.

Underpinning future requirements is the need to develop novel materials with tailored properties, to make radical advances in materials processing, to optimise manufacturing and engineering through knowledge-based design, and to establish innovative tools for predicting and characterising performance.

The underlying challenge is to characterise processes at an increasingly localised scale to enable prediction and manipulation of macroscopic behaviour and the production of materials and systems with managed properties.

Advanced measurement techniques are being established at NPL (including 3D-t imaging, in-situ and on-line characterisation, and novel nano-probes), coupled with modelling to support developments in:

Materials good practice guides aim to improve measurement understanding and technical abilities across the UK and the rest of the world. They describe good current practice and are produced with technical input from specialists in the particular subject covered.